40 amp vs 32 amp for your home

[moose]

We are in the process of building a house. I have pre-ordered the Model 3.

Is it worth wiring for 40 amp or is 32 amp sufficient? I discussed this subject with my sparkie earlier today and wiring for 40 amp will require 10 gauge wiring for the distance of approximately 6 metres. For 32 amp normal heavy duty house wiring will suffice.

Wondering if 40 amp is worth setting up for charging at home.

Cheers, Roger

 

[Blue heaven]

We are in the process of building a house. I have pre-ordered the Model 3.

Is it worth wiring for 40 amp or is 32 amp sufficient? I discussed this subject with my sparkie earlier today and wiring for 40 amp will require 10 gauge wiring for the distance of approximately 6 metres. For 32 amp normal heavy duty house wiring will suffice.

Wondering if 40 amp is worth setting up for charging at home.

Cheers, Roger

As the car is going to be parked regardless 32amps will be sufficient 99% of the time at home, although if you can get 40amps connected without too much extra cost go for it.

 

[doctorwho]

I have both, 32A in my city apartment, 40A at my country house. There's not a huge difference in practice as both will recharge your car overnight but if 40a isn't going to cost you much more money then why not?

 

[salamagd]

Surely at a length of 6 metres, the cost difference in cable gauge isn't a big deal?

 

[doctorwho]

You also need a bigger circuit breaker

 

[meloccom]

With home charging, you Model 3 will be full (90%) each morning and if need be you can set it to 100% when you wake up. So if you had to drive to Brisbane for meetings or errands, (116Km) travel around to meetings (50Km) then return (116Km), a total of 282Km, that is within the (100%) range of the base Model 3. It would only be in a scenario like this where you have probably spent most of the day in the car and get home very low that the speed of recharging is likely to be important. 32 Amp single phase will recharge a Model S at about 50Km range per hour and a Model 3 probably faster.
If you have a second car this reduces the need for faster charging than this to close to zero.

 

[Homer]

My sparky recently ran the heavier cable in my garage and it was probably 5 or 6 metres of the stuff. He estimated the cost was $50 for the cable so it isn't cheap but if I was building a house I would just do it. People seem to often regret not running CAT5/6 to every room and running a second COAX line, etc, when the house is just a frame as it's much more difficult and expensive to do it later. FWIW, I'd do it.

 

[Blue heaven]

With home charging, you Model 3 will be full (90%) each morning and if need be you can set it to 100% when you wake up. So if you had to drive to Brisbane for meetings or errands, (116Km) travel around to meetings (50Km) then return (116Km), a total of 282Km, that is within the (100%) range of the base Model 3. It would only be in a scenario like this where you have probably spent most of the day in the car and get home very low that the speed of recharging is likely to be important. 32 Amp single phase will recharge a Model S at about 50Km range per hour and a Model 3 probably faster.
If you have a second car this reduces the need for faster charging than this to close to zero.

50km from 32amp single phase? I'm only getting 34km, am I missing something? ( still enough to do the job though)

 

[moose]

Thanks guys. We are putting in 3 phase for the Powerwall and yes it's about $50 for the cable.

Homer, you are right. I was initially only running 3 Cat6 cables until my guru friend told me, run it to every room including the fridge! Trust me! So I now have 12 Cat6 lines of which 5 goes to the media room. One is for the security cameras. One of the Cat6 line was put in by the sparkies installing the solar. The Powerwall has a data line. As we have skillion roof there is no going back at a later date!

I also ran multiple COAX lines. It looks like overkill, but I may not regret it.

Cheers,

 

[Skotty]

32 amp is sufficient. I use a 32 amp L2 charger and it's certainly good enough. HOWEVER, as this is a new install, I would still recommend going with higher if possible.

 

[Mark E]

Co-incidentally, at 240v 1A= ~1km/h of range in a model s. i.e. 32A is 32-38km/h and 10A is 10-12km/h
If you are like most people, your car would be parked for 7-8 hours minimum while you slept, so getting home at midnight and leaving 7am would still put close to 240km in the car... Using cheaper tariffs you could schedule the start at 11 and get 270 or so km in the car overnight...

I use off peak @32A and have never had a car still charging in the morning when I wanted to leave - around 7:30am.

 

[paulp]

Thanks guys. We are putting in 3 phase for the Powerwall and yes it's about $50 for the cable.

Homer, you are right. I was initially only running 3 Cat6 cables until my guru friend told me, run it to every room including the fridge! Trust me! So I now have 12 Cat6 lines of which 5 goes to the media room. One is for the security cameras. One of the Cat6 line was put in by the sparkies installing the solar. The Powerwall has a data line. As we have skillion roof there is no going back at a later date!

I also ran multiple COAX lines. It looks like overkill, but I may not regret it.

Cheers,

Run cat 6 to each tv and use a media server. Coax is very yesterday. You then gets terrabytes of centralised storage.
Back to tesla, mine is setup for 40A but I have it dialled back in the car to 25. Havn't had need to charge any faster as I charge each night, and have way more range than I need. Clearly this is a circumstance based thing, bit wiring to 40A gives you all options.

 

[rowdy]

Keep in mind that the new onboard chargers for Model X (and probably M3) are 48A so I'd recommend getting wired for at least this. Easier to do it right the first time.

Consider running 3-phase wire now too if your upgrade to 3-phase is going to be later on.

 

[WA-T3sla]

It's all about future proofing. Consider running two lines for when you get that second electric car needing to be charged too. Wire as high an amperage as you can feed so you can charge as quick as possible or sequentially charge multiple vehicles overnight.

 

[moose]

Keep in mind that the new onboard chargers for Model X (and probably M3) are 48A so I'd recommend getting wired for at least this. Easier to do it right the first time.

Consider running 3-phase wire now too if your upgrade to 3-phase is going to be later on.

We are getting 3-phase installed now for the Powerwall. 10 gauge wiring will carry up to 50 amp.

 

[moose]

It's all about future proofing. Consider running two lines for when you get that second electric car needing to be charged too. Wire as high an amperage as you can feed so you can charge as quick as possible or sequentially charge multiple vehicles overnight.

The garage is the one area where we can add wiring at a later date and we have a manhole adjacent to the power box. We'll still install one 10 gauge wire at this time as we will be getting the Model 3 even if it takes 3 years.

 

[moose]

Run cat 6 to each tv and use a media server. Coax is very yesterday. You then gets terrabytes of centralised storage.
Back to tesla, mine is setup for 40A but I have it dialled back in the car to 25. Havn't had need to charge any faster as I charge each night, and have way more range than I need. Clearly this is a circumstance based thing, bit wiring to 40A gives you all options.

We are running Cat 6 and Coax to every TV. Coax maybe yesterday, but Fox still requires it.

We are also fortunate in our area (new subdivision) in getting NBN with fiber optic wire to the house. With all the horror stories in delays with NBN, we applied for the service through our server a month ago. We had installation last Friday as well as service, even though the house is still under construction. Plasterboard was completed last week and setting being done this week. We were recommended to sign up with SkyMesh for rate and speed. Temporarily we signed up for the cheapest plan $30/mth and the speed is phenomenal compared to ADSL2.

I know this is getting away from Tesla cars, but as an Owner Builder the learning curve has been unbelievable with the new technology. I'm grateful for the techie people, including our sparkie, who have provided valuable information. We are the first installation of the Powerwall with Natural Solar in Queensland. Not sure if anyone else has heard of one being installed by another provider.

 

[paulp]

Yes forgot about foxtel, hopefully they will upgrade their tech soon.
We have a company in SA called nuskope who do localised wireless internet. Same rates as adsl, but line speed guaranteed at 28mb/s. Its low cost reliable technology for them, and maybe its what the nbn should have been, plus its nice dealing with a local company where the person that answers actually deals with the call.
Because this is a tesla forum.....this all means I get extra fast tesla downloads to my garage wifi antanae.

 

[cashie]

We are getting 3-phase installed now for the Powerwall. 10 gauge wiring will carry up to 50 amp.

10 gauge, ie. 5mm cable?

 

[moose]

10 gauge, ie. 5mm cable?

I'll check when our sparkie comes in to install the wire tomorrow and let you know.